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As someone who is most likely to dislike the "Cute Girls doing cute things" pseudo-genre, I was intrigued by the simplicity of what this show is trying to achieve. By the end of the series, I was impressed by how well they actually managed to pull it off and transition to the epilogue (some of the parts feel rushed, hence it can be a turn-off for others). The objective of the show is to teach you that (as I interpreted it) "a determined soul can do everything" (also present in Albert Camus's book, "The Myth of Sisyphus") through what may sound to many, a ... stupid objective, to go to Antarctica.

The story is simple to follow, as it's just the journey of the high school girls, with the goal of making it to Antarctica. It shows their hardships, from getting the money required to go to such a place to emotional struggles, and also the physical ones, it's not an easy dream to achieve, as every dream ought to be. The characters are well-made, they are easy to like and attach to, nothing surprising, the only nitpick is that they are not special in any way compared to the rest of the characters present in this type of anime, as someone who seeks perfection in everything, it comes to me as a disadvantage, but a regular person probably won't even notice.

Of course, we are talking about a modern show, the animation is on point, the sounds and voice acting are excellent, the opening and the ending of each episode are on point, nothing to cry about. Also, this is one of the few anime that tells the whole story in 13 episodes, with no more movies, or special episodes, if you are in for a trip, I highly recommend this title. (I welcome any feedback for this review).

Dandadan is one of the "best-selling products" of the Fall 2024 season, why am I calling it a product, you may ask? Well, it's because I can't recognize it as a story. While the show has many downsides, it does the things that matter nowadays incredibly good for the anime community to adore this. Things such as interesting characters, basic logic, events that don't just spawn there, and many other things are unnecessary.

The story doesn't make any sense, as it's just random villains wanting to kill the 2 main characters because they are just bad guys and that's their job. That's it. The characters that ... take part in the action are the following: 2 female characters made for fan service (degen bait), and 1 regular guy that through a miracle nobody could have foreseen, now has superpowers. Another thing that modern shows struggle with is permanent deaths, the question that is now in everyone's mind when the characters are in trouble is not "Wow, is he dead?", but "Hm, how will he escape this?", thus removing all the tension. Another thing that makes the story absurd is that the protagonists, who are supposed to be human are thrown into concrete walls at supersonic speeds, yet they beat the one-dimensional bad guy unscratched in the following 5 minutes. One purely subjective thing present in this show is the comedy, the corny degenerate jokes that will make every dweeb die of laughter, personally, I don't find anything funny in this show.

Now, let's talk about what the show does incredibly well, as specified in the introduction. The animation, and the fighting choreography, to no one's surprise, are the thing that makes this show from a nonsensical product to everyone's favorite. I know this review may seem emotionally driven and pretty short, but I can't find anything to praise, or even talk about or philosophy on the subject in cause.

Have a good day! Any critique that would lead me to write better reviews is much appreciated.

Minor spoilers ahead.

Ousama Ranking wants to be unique among the other shows in this era, and to some extent, it is, but only among Japanese ones. The setting is very similar to a classic European fairy tale, and even the story somehow manages to go in that direction. Still, it fails the litmus test very badly, in the sense that after the first couple of episodes, which are very similar to what I used to watch when I was a kid in Disney movies, the author of the series manages to reward the villain, the same villain that wanted to ruin the lives of millions ... of inocents, because she was a misunderstood woman all along.

The setting/world-building is not at all impressive, just like I said earlier, it's a classic fairy tale world (Some random towns each and there, some evil hole and that's pretty much it), it's clear that the show doesn't want to impress the audience by the world in which the action happens. (I'm talking solely on the anime)

I found the story very underwhelming, it's nothing new, and the only things that want to make the show "unique" are the very bad decisions of the characters. For example, one character loses his body, because a woman in the mirror tells him to drink a potion, telling him he will become stronger if he does, hence starting all this mayhem. Fake deaths are very common and the villains are turned into misunderstood guys with a last-second flash-back. Talking about villains, the characters are mostly bland, they fit in the archetypes they were created with and never tried to escape or be unique in any way.

One of the positives of this show is the art direction that it took, if you don't care about the previously mentioned points you will get the dopamine rush sought by so many. Notice I've decided to put "Mixed Feelings" just because in this day and age, I feel like a good animation will get you further than a good written story.

This is one of my very first reviews, if you have any tips for me/any books that might help my phrasing, please let me know. Have a good day!